<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Conan the Barbarian
Release Date	May 14, 1982
Genre	Action/Fantasy
Director	John Milius
Screenwriter	John Milius and Oliver Stone
Stars	Arnold Schwarzenegger
Studio	Universal Pictures

Conan the Barbarian (1982) was a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role of Robert E Howard's celebrated sword and sorcery character, Conan.

The movie takes place in a pre-historical era, begining in a primitive village in the fictional country of Cimmeria. A village is wiped out by the power mad sorceror Thulsa Doom (played by James Earl Jones) and a young boy's mother is decapitated before his eyes. The boy is captured as a slave, and grows into a giant of a man who traverses the world and meets challenge after challenge with strength and fererocity, until he gets the opportunity for revenge.

The movie suffers from a simplistic slow-moving plot and mediocre acting. Some of the action sequences are memorable, the level of sex and violence impressive, and the musical score is quite powerful. Still, it is not nearly worthy of the fine source material.

Though this R rated movie was critically panned, it enjoyed some real fans, and made Schwartzenegger into a movie star. It was financially successful enough to inspire a sequel, said to be even worse than the original.